Review: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – JK Rowling

Harry Potter is a wizard who was having quite the raw summer with his Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon and their horrible son, Dudley Dursley. He is having an even worse summer than usual seeing as he almost got to live with his godfather, Sirius Black, though his name was not cleared before the summer vacation. He was still labelled a mass murdered and Dark wizard. Harry is only too thrilled when his best friend in the world, Ron Weasley, invites him to stay and go to the Quidditch World Cup. Harry is elated, and soon the remainder of his holiday is spent in the company of the Weasleys and Hermione Granger, another close friend. Excited about the Quidditch World Cup, the friends have an absolute blast. However, all good things come to an end, and Voldemort, the most evil Dark Wizard of their time, seems never to be forgotten. His followers terrorize a Muggle family, and finally the Dark Mark is sent into the air, causing massive panic.

Barty Crouch, a member of the Ministry of Magic, sacks his house elf, Winky, when she is discovered near the Dark Mark, carrying Harry’s wand. This spurs Hermione on to start SPEW, an organization intent on helping the house elves in the world. The Dark Mark marred the Quidditch World Cup a little bit, and Harry starts to wonder. His scar was prickling during the summer, but he is sure Voldemort is nowhere near him. Returning to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the students are elated to hear that the Triwizard Tournament has been reinstated, and will be hosted at Hogwarts this year. However, no student under the age of seventeen may enter, and there are many disappointed students, including Ron’s twin brothers, Fred and George, who are intent on finding a way to enter, anyhow. Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody starts at Hogwarts as the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, and soon the students are in awe of him. As an ex-Auror, Moody has caught many Dark wizards and Death Eaters, and is training the students intensely to defend themselves.

Students from Beauxbatons Academy and Durmstrang Institute arrive to submit the names to have their champions chosen, and Durmstrang comes with a highly notable guest: Viktor Krum, the Bulgarian Seeker that they saw play at the Quidditch World Cup. The night the Goblet of Fire chooses the champions is a wonderful one, and everyone is thrilled when Cedric Diggory of Hufflepuff is chosen as the Hogwarts champion, while Fleur Delacour is the representative for Beauxbatons and Viktor Krum for Durmstrang. In confusion, Harry is also chosen as a champion, and Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore is furious. It is a magically binding contract, and Harry will have to compete, whether he likes it or not.

Incredibly popular among the Gryffindor students and loathed by the remainder of the school, Harry has an incredibly hard time dealing with it all seeing as his best friend, Ron, the person he was counting on the most to stand by him, refuses to believe that Harry had nothing to do with entering the tournament. Their friendship suffers heavily. Draco Malfoy, Harry’s ultimate nemesis, is having a ball with Harry’s suffering. However, Harry has the issue of the three tasks coming up, and not knowing how he would be dealing with it. His first task is set, which happens to be retrieving a golden egg from a dragon, and he needs to figure out how to do that, soon. As though Harry was not having enough issues as was, Daily Prophet reporter Rita Skeeter publishes exceptionally demeaning stories about Harry. Sirius meets with Harry to warn him about the Durmstrang headmaster, Igor Karkaroff. He was a convicted Death Eater. It seems Moody’s assessment that someone may be trying to use the tournament to harm Harry isn’t so crazy after all.

When their fight blows over, Harry and Ron finally have much to talk about again, and so many things were missed. Harry needs all the help he can get, and is pleased to find that Dobby the house elf, whom he had once freed from the employ of Lucius Malfoy, is working at Hogwarts. Harry has two more tasks to complete, and a crowd to win over. However, strange occurrences seem to be taking place, and nobody seems to be taking note of them aside from Dumbledore and Sirius, as well as the three friends.

What do all the omens mean? Do the dreams that Harry is having have anything to do with what is going on outside of the walls of Hogwarts? Did Peter “Wormtail” Pettigrew return to Lord Voldemort when he escaped from Sirius’s clutches at the end of last term, snatching Harry’s future away from him entirely? What is going on at Hogwarts, and is Mad-Eye Moody just crazy, or is something more sinister going on than meets the eye?

Another stellar input from J.K. Rowling. The sheer excitement you get caught up in at the Quidditch World Cup was amazing, and Fred and George with their tricky little jokes and inventions was great. It was intense to have Harry and Ron fighting the way that they did, it was very difficult to bear through. Harry’s loneliness was palpable, as was the shock of his name having come out of the Goblet. It was a little disappointing that Snape featured so little in this book; he has always been a very central part of the Harry Potter world, in my opinion. It is not that he was not a part of this book, but it seems very little that he cropped up. Mad-Eye was also a great character, and he incites that necessity for constant vigilance, even with the readers. It was through him that you started to wonder if more was going on than the average wizard was aware of. The events were awesome to follow in this book, and there was much fun to be had, as well as a lot to make you nervous and wonder. Dobby played another important role in Goblet of Fire for Harry, and he always brings something extra to the table. For the first time, a little pubescent nervousness is brought to the fore what with the Yule Ball, and we have a look at Harry developing some type of inexplicable (at that age) feelings towards Cho Chang. This book was magical, and did not become boring or dragged out at any point. The twins provided humour, as always, and a little bit more of Cedric Diggory’s personality was explored. Rita Skeeter brought in the frustrating element of this book, and even had me just taken a little aback by how nasty and cruel she was. The story behind Neville’s living with his grandmother broke my heart. He lost so much, yet never says anything. I would highly recommend this book, as it was in my top few. Definitely worth the read.

SPOILER:The rise of Voldemort has long since been anticipated, and I thought that it was exceptionally well done in this book. He was terrifying, cruel and mean, nothing short of what you would have expected him to be when he regained his strength. The graveyard duel was intense, and Diggory’s death was terrible to have been brought into play. The Death Eaters’ cowardly return was awful to behold.

Haha, why thank you Chris! I really liked this, it is where everything finally lost the innocence and got darker, most definitely! From here on out the humour was there, but things got so serious. Love it! Glad to hear that you have read the books too 🙂

I love how you said, “The rise of Voldemort has long since been anticipated, and I thought that it was exceptionally well done in this book.” That is so true. I completely agree that the graveyard scene was perfect for the rise of evil. It was intense and just the right amount of luck, foreseen events, and past coming together. 🙂

Goblet of fire is my favourite in the series. Harry is finally starting to grow up and things move from being a ‘middle grade’ story to something with more meat in it.
Coincidentally – when I started reading the Potter books I was their age. And each year as I read a new one I aged along with them.

🙂 I was actually speaking to a colleague the other day, and we agreed that it sparked a whole new generation of readers. I grew up reading from an incredibly young age, but a lot of the readers I know now only got in on it through these books!

Great review! I LOVED this book. I don’t think any other Harry Potter book lived up to this one. I thought they actually went downhill after Goblet of Fire. So it kind of sucked that I loved this one so much. 😉